Programming Tools: Eric3

Installing eric3 is trivial, assuming you have a matching Qt
installation already present. Download the eric3 tarball, untar it and
then, as administrator, run python install.py.
Otherwise, you need to install Qt, sip and PyQt first. The README file
is quite clear on the steps you need to follow.

For me, installation was not an issue because I was using Qt as my GUI of
choice. Both KDE and wxPython also are supported by eric3.

I develop under SuSE Linux 9.1. As such, I have access to a non-commercial
Linux version of Qt 3.3.1. Currently, no non-commercial Windows version
of Qt is available. In the case of Windows, licenses for Qt and QScintilla
need to be obtained. The former comes from Trolltech. PyQt and QScintilla
come from Riverbank Computing (see Resources).

Usage

Using eric3 often is intuitive. I spend most of my time in the editor or
debugging. See Figure 2 for a screenshot of a debugging session. It
shows the class hierarchy, source code, stack trace and display of
local variables. They all are readily available once you're using eric3.

Pros and Cons

Some of the pros for using eric3 are:

Intuitive interface for both development and
debugging.

Effective debugger.

Good code editor.

Intuitive project manager.

Speed of operation is good; it comes up
fast.

Some nice integrated tools, such as unittest and
refactoring.

Cons for this product include:

The editor cannot find or replace within selected blocks of text when
the selection is made by cursor movement.

Using the repository feature is confusing for someone who already has
the source under some local version control.

More documentation is needed. For instance, no useful documentation
is provided for using the Project menu options.

Currently, eric3 supports only Python. There are future plans to
support Perl, though.

Installing eric3 for the first time would
benefit greatly from a packaging systems similar to Red Hat's RPMs or Debian's DEBs.

The integrated debugger is the best feature. My most serious complaint
is the editor not working with selected portions of text. I would give
eric3 a suitability score of 4.2 out of 5, a rating of Very Good.

Examples

You can use two example utilities to check out eric3 for yourself. The
utilities can be obtained as tarballs on the Linux
Journal FTP site, listed in Resources below. u2d converts
code from UNIX to DOS, and d2u converts from DOS to
UNIX. Figure 3 shows u2d.py being debugged.

You guys really should take a look at DrPython. It's a really well put together, free, cross platform IDE written in Python and wxWindows. It's now very mature (v3.4.4) but still being very actively developed with updates appearing each week.

The core editor is based around Scintilla and includes a class browser and embedded command prompt for each open file. It also has a nice tabbed interface, has recently adopted a plug-in architecture and is fully scriptable.

It's by far the most productive (and one of the nicest looking) Python IDEs I've come across and I've been using it for all my development work for the fast six months or so.

I really can't understand why more people don't seem to be aware of it.

Borland with Delphi has set the standard, not MS.
Delphi is outstanding, and QtArchitecht looks a lot like Delphi IDE.

It is predictable that IDE for oo graphic and (non graphic ) programing will copy the best. (delphi)... as Trolltech did.
Welcome to Eric3 that I have not so far been able to install, (still miss a piece!).
May I suggest to allow Eric3 install using YUM, or APT-GET (or its GUI Synaptic)?

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